Rolled up progress calculated inconsistently

[Dave]

I have a Prj03 file with about 500 tasks in a dozen projects. Most of
the summaries display progress consistently (ActualStart - Complete
Through), but there are a couple that persistently display 99%
complete when only the first one or two subtasks are 100% complete.
For these summaries it is also impossible to set % complete manually -
manual changes revert to 99% (% complete can be set manually to any
value for the other summaries). Does anybody have any suggestions?
Thanks
Dave

 

[James G]

Hi Dave,

We encounter the same situation. I've discovered that it is usually a Fixed
Duration task that has finished early. You will notice this via the little
dots that extend from the end of the task. If you change the task-type to
that of Fixed Units/Work, your summary task % Complete value should revert to
100%.

HTH

James.G

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

A little off topic thought ... That's why I feel Fixed Duration is overused,
all to often to force the plan to look like what you want rather than what
you're going to get. To my thinking, it is impossible for a true Fixed
Duration task to finish early (or late, for that matter) as long as the
start date hasn't moved. If it was scheduled at 5 days, a truly fixed
duration would take exactly 5 days, no more, no less, and it would be
physically impossible for it to do anything else and still have its
deliverable be completed.

 

[Dave]

James,

My problem is actually the opposite of what you describe. I have
summaries that are displaying far too much progress rather than too
little. The summaries show 99% complete when only one or two of
numerous subordinate tasks (representing far less than 99% of total
work) have been completed.

Thanks
Dave

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

% Complete does not represent work performed. That's % Work Complete, a
totally different measure. % Complete refers to duration, a measure of
working time. Depending on your resource assignments, links, etc, it's
entirely possible for 99% of the summary task duration to have been passed
with a much lower percent of the total work being done. 99% does seem a bit
on the high side but not impossible, especially if some of the subordinate
tasks marked complete do not have resources assigned to them and so have
zero work associated with them. If you'd like to email the file I'd be glad
to take a look at it and see if I can figure out what's going on.